New Mindflayer Info

[Scribble]

Get close, eat brain/create spawn (thrall), repeat.

I want this on a t-shirt...

 

[Scribble]

I don't know, this attack chain seems a little too much like Step-by-step instructions. Not to say that its a bad thing, but hopefully this isn't what monsters are limited to.

Round 1 attack
Round 2 Use attck based power
Round 3 Use final power
Round 4 See Round 1

Seems a little redundant to me.

Well... eveything has an "attack routine..." I mean look at boxers.. they jab before they punch. It's just doing things in a way that maximizes the efficiency of the attack.

I agree the monsters shouldn't be robotic, but giving a DM an easily seen attack routine is paramount in my opinion.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Yeah, not happy with the once per encounter mind blast. Maybe its harder to resist though.

a 1d4 round reset would be preferable.

Someone mentioned that the new DDM manual has status effects without defined durations - you just get a 50% chance to dispel them every round after the first (straight d20 roll, DC 11). I'm not at all sure if this will work the same way for 4e P&P status effects, but it seems like an interesting possibility. (And you could have cool stuff like dwarves with a +2 to "shake off" status effects, so that they'd still be vulnerable to those effects, just for a shorter timespan on average.)

 

[Plane Sailing]

The bloodied condition should not give you access to new abilities (except healing). There can be exceptions but I don't want that abilities, especially as prominent ones as Mind Blast, can only be used while wounded. This makes no sense at all.

I disagree. I like the idea that bloodied can initiate stuff.

I first saw it in the 'alt-Barbarian' in PHB2, where rage activates whenever you drop to half hit points IIRC.

We've seen it in the dragon example as has already been noted.

Worlds and Monsters tells us that Demons (not devils) have some abilities that come into play when they get bloodied.

It makes perfect sense to me that getting wounded could activate certain powers. I gave one potential example for mindflayers above, there are loads of different possibilities.

e.g. "Acid for Blood" in Aliens - spurts out when bloodied...

 

[FadedC]

One thing to consider when discussing what a mind flayer "should" be able to do is what type of creature it's intended to be.....ie regular, elite or solo. The original mind flayer was a bit too nasty to be a regular monster (4+ mind blasts a round?) and a bit too boring to be a solo monster (he either stuns everyone and wipes the party or somebody kills him first in which case he does no damage). My guess is that the 4e mind flayer is intended to be an elite monster....he's not complicated enough to be solo and maybe a little too complicated for a regular.

 

[frankthedm]

While somthing had to be done about the Mind flayer being able to spam Mindblast causing 3d4 rounds of "Sit and suck", I am not thrilled with the way this version sounds.

Oh well.

 

[lukelightning]

While somthing had to be done about the Mind flayer being able to spam Mindblast causing 3d4 rounds of "Sit and suck", I am not thrilled with the way this version sounds.

Not to mention stunned means you drop whatever is in your hands. Many a DM has done the dirty trick of having the mind flayer stun the party and then send in thralls to take away their weapons.

Since I'm not exactly batting 1.000 today-- what's the 5th level effect that removes stun?

Head On. Apply directly to the forehead.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

While somthing had to be done about the Mind flayer being able to spam Mindblast causing 3d4 rounds of "Sit and suck", I am not thrilled with the way this version sounds.

[tangent]

Anybody else out there who'd rather be stunned than frightened?

Seems to me that fear was basically twice the duration you expected-- run away for X rounds, spend X rounds running back...

 

[Remathilis]

[tangent]

Anybody else out there who'd rather be stunned than frightened?

Seems to me that fear was basically twice the duration you expected-- run away for X rounds, spend X rounds running back...

Thats if you're lucky; most of the time it was run for X rounds, encounter Y monsters by fleeing , and return Z rounds later after your friends are nearly dead from the combat that caused you to flee + the combats needed to rescue your behind from the unexplored room/random encounter/trapped hall you just fled down...

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well if those are the ONLY Mindflayer abilities yeah that would suck. But if it isn't or the Mindflayer has classes then I think combat can be just as robust/complicated since it is sorta the idea that the brain-sucking would be a signature move, but only done when the best opportunity arrives.

As for stunned or feared, with current rules I prefer stunned but I would like to see some good fear roles, where you don't run away, but instead are effected differently depending on the intensity. Like look at soldiers they are obviously frightened while fighting, but they don't automatically run away, but they may get sick, aim may grow faulty, etc.